Sienna woods lot release

HI All,

Has anyone bought land in Sienna wood?
I am one of them and am having difficulty in deciding who my builder will be?
Can any one help me with this?
I have short listed Aussie living , dreamstart for now, but cant really decide who i should go with.
little help will be appreciated.

Thanks

Welcome.

We are building with Aussie but not in sienna woods. We have had our ups and down for the build but overall have been really happy. Some of their inclusions are great, others aren't but we just got our roof yesterday and are very happy with how the house is coming along.

A good place to start is finding a plan or a couple from the builder you like that fit your block and going from there. With entry level builders it can sometimes cost a bit to make big changes. Though we made our house 1m longer and it was less then $4000, which considering it meant an extra meter of kitchen cabinets I was pretty happy with.

You also need to find a sales person you like. I can highly recommend the guy we used and happy to send you his details. He works out of the cube in baldivis but we met him the first time in the office in Osborne park.

Good luck! This can be an exhausting time but a lot of f as well

Hi Fmac,

Thanks for your reply. Aussie is good but a bit expensive when compared with other builders and they dont have many inclusions which is worrying me as all these will add up cost later on and i intend to stay within my budget.
but with dream start everything is included and their reviews are not too bad as well. I am meeting dream start builder today and will get a quote from him/

All those PS values scare me as it can increase or reduce. but i am sure it will increase most of the time so my advice always get a non PS value from your builder so that you don't get any surprises later on.

Anyone else from seinna woods????

The provisional sums can be a concern. I'll be honest we didn't shop around. Though since then I've looked at the plans by other builders which would have fit on our block (10m wide) and think we have the best house design for the block.

If you get a good sales person they should be able to give you a rough guide as to what the cost will be with all the things you want prior to signing anything.

The provisional sums can be tough. Our site works increased by $10,000 after site survey as we needed retaining walls which then led to needing safety rails for the roof plumbers. I do think the builders generally try and get them close though.

The one thing that I liked with Aussie was their displays. They display them pretty close to what you get included rather then way over what the starting price is.

Good luck with dream start. I think the advise most will give is find someone you are comfortable with and doesn't avoid giving cost information upfront or fobs you off with comments like 'you can do that at prestart'

Hi Fmac,

Yes i have had builders who told me dont worry about that we can do it at prestart. kitchen relocation prestart. stone tops in bathroom prestart and they advertised their price so low that you might start thinking that they are the one. once i went out there visited all the display homes i realized my pre start would have been around 20k if i just include everythig at pre start.

with dream start they are providing everything, the extra i might have to include maybe upgrading the carpet to a better one, changing door handles, change the plan to developers, estate agents requirements and 6 start energy requirements. But all the important stuff is covered which is very good with dream start and I know what my price is upfront.
can you give me some advice with carpet. i am getting a standard carpet with underlay, how good is it? will i need to upgrade and how much am i looking at to upgrade the carpet to a good one?
site works is not in any ones hands, it will be decided after the survey is done, sienna woods site works are Class A it seems which means i will be spending minimum for it.

anything else i need to be worried about? or anything i must/should include in the house? anything i should be asking the builder about?
this is my first home i am a bit tensed?

thanks for your help

Most of what I know I've learnt here

There is a thread on here somewhere about things you forgot, is a great resource.

It was going to cost us over $1000 to upgrade our carpet to the one above builders standard range. Most people will say the underlay makes a huge difference. If we'd had the option we probably would have done the flooring outside the building contract (after handover) but it wasn't an option and part of me does like the convenience of not having to worry about it later.

I would decide what is and isn't important and what can be changed down the track. We wanted stone bench tops do we're willing to pay but while I wanted nice taps and internal doors we can do them down the track.

It also depends to an extent of if you plan on keeping the house long term or if it's a short term stepping stone.

Depending on the size and orientation of your block think about if you'll get enough natural light in through the windows you have.

Consider windows and furniture placement. Will bedroom windows prevent a bed being placed near it. Will you want the couch where there is a floor to ceiling window in the living room.

Also think in practical terms. Double basins in the ensuite are the in thing at the moment but is the bench big enough? No point having two if there is no bench space to put your toothbrush or put a hair straightener

And ask questions!! There is always someone who will be happy to share what thru know. We do all have different tastes and opinions so take what works for you and include it.

OK i spoke to dream start sales rep. was pretty convincing and within my budget. but few things that i am worried about as they dont include crossover and nbn ready connection. got a quote form him for crossover 2500$. but he himself does not know what a NBN ready connection is. he think its just a power point and a conduit which he thinks will be under 200$, i am worried about that now. I am sure NBN is not just that and there is more in it. Do you have any idea what it is and how much it is going to cost?

Crossover is expensive and you only get a few hundred back from the council. You can do it yourself but the hassle could end up being worse! I can check what puts was tonight, we had it in the contract from the beginning.

Not sure on nbn cost to prep as our was included but I can check out contract. But it is simply a power point and conduit for a data point. To actually get nbn you then pay for the set up. This may be different if you do an intelligent homes thing and do lots of extra conduit for future data points and stuff but we didn't bother.

Just checked. Our provision for future NBN was included as part of our telecommunications package.

Crossover us base was $1720

Hi Fmac,

Thats great, my crossover with the builder is coming up to 2500. I dont understand it says driveway paving 6m included but he is paving only till 4.5m and when i asked him y not just do the 6 m that will reduce the area of crossover that i have to do, he said its not included.
I might have private contractors do it for me, i am sure they will be much cheaper. and also i get the left over materials for crossover.

NBN is not included in my package, but i am thinking NBN will be really expensive to connect so y not skip it and not do it. But if the cost for NBN set up is less then i mite go ahead, but my sales rep does not exactly know how much its going to cost.
I was seeing your house plan, looks amazing. did you choose timber flooring instead of tiles? looks amazing.

http://www.dreamstarthomes.com.au/Our_H ... e_125m.htm

this is the plan i am going with. Its a brand new design and first of its kind, well thats how the sales rep put it across. i am pretty happy with the kitchen and i am making the bedroom 3 and 4 rectangular shaped instead of the exisitng ones. apart from that no changes as you may kow any changed comes with a huge cost.
my master suite is a bit smaller and the WIR and the ensuite is small as well. But cant really do much about it i guess.

I think all you need for NBN is a conduit and power point for the set up. Our powerpoints were only $62 for a double and conduit was $30 or $60 depending what it is going to.
The telecommunications package including that which also had phone point etc was $700
We had 6m of paving. I think it is the subbase for the crossover that they charge you for, you have to have that to get the money back from the council.

We have gone wi wood look flooring, we aren't a huge fan of tiles and we didn't like any of the standard ones. It was one of the more expensive upgrades though there may have been cheaper options.

We only had a small block so not a huge choice for house plans. We are really happy with what we have ended up with

Looks pretty good! Think about at least putting the frames in for door on the theatre and laundry.
If your not in a hurry to pick a builder I would find another plan with another builder like housing centre, Aussie or similar and see what they quote for a similar house with similar spec. Might give you some bargaining power to get other things included.

Oh i didn even think about that, yes i mite need a frame in the laundry now but the theatre i want it to be open, i saw some of the display houses with the same theatre and i loved it.
I went thro many builders even with a new builder named optimum property group (first Abode builders who build for them) but i found dream start to be the most affordable ones with all the inclusions. they even provide stone tops in kitchen and toilets and ducted evaporative as their months promotion (which i will be checking with private dealers find out how much they will charge me and if they are cheaper mite get dream start to credit the allowance)
but honestly i went thro aussie, commodore, home start, home buyers(they are the most exp builders in 2013), optimum ( new builders, affordable but very new so you cant judge their quality), wa housing ( they give evrything for free, read some reviews and found they are the worst builders in WA), others here and there and their basic house was already very exp now when u start to add tiles, carpet and most important stuff your total price will shoot up.
With dream start i foud that they dont do crossover and the garage is 25c and no nbn apart from that they provide everything that is basic. and they have maintained their display home with standard inclusions so you will know exactly what you are getting.
Please correct me if i am wrong. and also i am running out of time as titles are due august and the building contracts take 6 weeks then have to get my load approved. so really have this week end to decide.
Please give me your suggestions and i will look into it.


Thanks

Sounds like you have done a lot of research! I only mention it because we didn't and I sometimes wonder if we could have got a better deal!
Our garage and alfresco are not 25c but we dont have big cars so not a huge issue and didn't even think about raising them!
If you don't add a frame to the theatre consider having the brick work above the entrance done so if/when you sell it potential buyers can see they can add a frame without much issue, though again just a suggestion, it all depends how long you are thinking of keeping the house if I can find a picture of what I mean I'll post it.

As mentioned adding the provisions for having NBN layer should be more then about $100 or so dollars, again worth doing if your area will ave NBN in the near future and you plan on selling.

Hi FMAC,
I have a bit of a confusion on which brick wall to choose, 1c brick wall or 2c brick wall. Do you know which one is better?
and the roof tiles, there are so many of them. again i am not sure which one to choose.

I searched the forum didn find anyone talking about brick walls.

Pick the bricks you like best, don't think there is anything different about them except the look they give you. We went with 2c because we liked them
We went with tiles, didn't want colourbond. We picked our roof tiles based on the colours we wanted.
We picked our colours after looking at many different houses!

Hi Iki,

Im Issy and Im not building in sienna wood but Im close to you Were building in Springtime Estate in Haynes To be honest, you really want to shop around for this. In my opinion if you can go display homes and talk to them and feel comfortable with them then thats one step closer.. There was so many new home consultants that were so nice to us. At the end of the day, its also what they can offer you.. Sure some house designs cost more than others but really really look at the specifications to see what that home builder can offer you.. Compare them with other builders too

We're building with New Generation, we havent start anything besides signing our PPA.. So far so good, we correspond via emails and face to face.. Next is pre start but that wont be til May or later

Hope this helps.